Forums are swell

It has finally happened... Three Trees Studios now has its own FORUM! This is the place to go to discuss anything and everything about our webcomics, books, or whatever. We'll even be posting some exclusive content over there. So check it out... you can interact with us and other readers!

OTHER GREAT COMIC FORUMS...

-Flight Forum: This was setup by Kazu Kibuishi, who puts together the excellent Flight anthologies. Just a great community of talented and supportive artists there.

-ChristianComics.net Forum: One of the best networking places for Christian comics artists... members run the gamut from "just starting" to professional creators.

-Parable Forum: This forum was started for creators working on the new Christian anthology Parable, but it is also just a great place to interact with some extremely talented artists.

-The Drawing Board: A huge board with tons of designers, comic artists, and other creators. There is almost too much great stuff to take in at this board!

-Kansas City Comix Scene Board: The place for comic people from KC (and surrounding area... I guess we count).

All of these forums are full of amazing artwork. Dusty and I use these as artistic inspiration... just looking at what others are doing for a little while gets you really pumped about drawing.

New Rook City Story

The new Rook City story started yesterday. It's called "Road Block" and it features the return of the Vlad Squad! This one was written by Elton and me. Elton originally came up with the Vlad Squad idea, and then we developed it together. Same thing with this story. "Transformations" introduced these characters, but we're trying to show you a lot more about them in this tale. This will be a four-parter probably, and then we'll start our first major Rook City story arc (by major I mean over 20 pages).

Here's a Vlad Squad pin-up some of you might not have seen:


And don't forget... a new Evil Ain't Easy strip will be up tomorrow!

S.P.A.C.E.d Out: Part 3!

Here's even more of the great loot I acquired while at S.P.A.C.E. It's taken me this long to get a chance to read some of these.

Zig Zag by J. Chris Campbell- This guy is just way too creative. Zig Zag is a one-man anthology full of quirky stories of hypochondriac robots, killer store owners, and of course... Attic Bugs. This book is a blast to read! So many styles all done so well.

Owly by Andy Runton- What a great book for anyone to read... kids to adult! The wordless adventures of a loveable owl and his friends. I really love Andy's work with a brush pen- just a really clean, fun style to look at. There's a reason this book is really taking off.

Superior Showcase by Bertozzi, Dawson, and Trippe- A great little anthology of superhero tales by some indie creators. I especially enjoyed Nick Bertozzi's convenience store heroes and Dean Trippe's tale about the sidekick Butterfly (a great webcomic, by the way).

Turtletown by Steve Hamaker- Steve is the incredible artist who has worked on Flight, Bone, and his own series, Fish N Chips. This is a cool book about obedience he illustrated for a pastor. Very well done! He showed us some pages from his story in Flight 3 (coming out June 27) and they looked so great. Cannot wait to get that book!

Fanci-full Friends by Gustav Chompe- A print collection of a highly quirky webcomic. Very original and eccentric stuff... and I really dig it.

Happy Town by Justin Madson- Justin had several collections of his series there, and I only purchased the first of them. I'm really impressed with his very unique style and the size of this series. It includes everything from superheroics to fantasy to sci-fi to slice-of-life... all in one cohesive tale. Ambitious and engaging.

Creature Tech by Doug TenNapel- I picked this up at the Top Shelf table. This is just a crazy fun book about scientists, space eels, ghosts, and surprisingly... faith. This is probably my favorite thing I got at the con. I've got to track down more of Doug's stuff!

The Amazing Cynicalman by Matt Feazell- Dubbed the "King of Mini-comics" by the Indie Spinner Rack guys, Matt has obviously been doing this a long time and has got it down. At his table, if you did a quick sketch of Cynicalman (basically a stick figure), you got a free webcomic. I traded our book for the collected Cynicalman... a very good swap. Lots of simple and yet witty humor!

Probably the most inspiring thing at this show was the chance to see so much great, creative stuff being produced by so many cool people. It really got us excited to work even harder on our stuff. This was Nathan's first con, and he was especially jazzed about it all.

Whew... that's it for our S.P.A.C.E. report. Can't wait to go again!

S.P.A.C.E.d Out: Part 2!

When we went to the S.P.A.C.E. convention back in May, we traded comics with a bunch of the cool creators from the Kansas City area. These are people we have been corresponding and collaborating with over the last year. KC has a pretty noticeable comics scene... a lot of very talented folks just doing this for the love of it and not afraid to offer encouragement to others doing the same thing. I know they have definitely spurred on my creativity. Check out their site for more info!

Anyway, here's some of the groovy books we got:

- Matt Hawkins: Cowboy Clyde & the Pirates (a hilarious strip that ran in the KC Star a few months ago) and Melvin & Frank Comics #1. Matt has a really well-developed and fun cartoony style that compliments his off-beat humor.

- Rob Schamberger: Rob Schamberger Makes Comix. Rob is one productive guy, and this collects some of his recent stuff, including stories, sketches, and the his "Empty House" series that also ran in the KC Star.

- Duane Cunningham: Band on the Sun. Written with Rob, this is a high-energy tale about a band and their adventures in the last days before Earth is wiped out by an asteroid.

- Shaun Gray: Odd Jobs. This is a fun idea- a strip about gamers but from the perspective of the other characters in the game. Shaun draws it in a clean, simple style that really fits.

- Michelle Arcand: Being Different. This is a pretty dark and yet somehow meaningful tale about kids and how things really work.

-Kyle Strahm: Girl Friday and March of 10,000 Undead Gabors. Kyle's stark black & white artwork is so fun to look at and these stories are a hoot! Gotta love Scottish warriors taking on the undead!

Anyway, you all should check out the sites of these fine creators. Hopefully, they enjoyed Random Ink as much as we enjoyed their books.

Updates

Just another reminder that there are new Evil Ain't Easy and Rook City pages up. Check 'em out and leave a comment... I dare ya.

We've just started work on a jam comic that all four of us are working on. We're all pretty jazzed about this. Each artist is doing a page and then passing it on to the next guy. Should be pretty crazy and fun. We'll be posting more about it here eventually.

New things

The second Evil Ain't Easy strip was posted online today. Check it out... and let us know what you think!
We have our first Three Trees Studios swag now available for purchase! That's right... you, too, can be on the cutting edge of fashion with this stylin' t-shirt. It features artwork from Dusty, Nathan, and I on the back and our logo on the front. Check out our store at CafePress for ordering details!

The Absent-Minded Teacher

Well, school has been out for a whole week now... glorious summer is here! That magical time of sleeping in and getting lots of artwork done (hopefully). I thought I would give you guys a peek into just how weird my brain is. The above image is a collection of notes that I wrote myself during the last school year. You see, I travel between two schools every day and I'm pretty absent-minded... without notes like these I tend to forget a ton of things. These particular notes were the offspring of some serious boredom apparently. Pretty goofy stuff. Hopefully you find them amusing.

(By the way, "ISD" stands for In School Detention. Those are the poor kids who get to do bookwork instead of art projects because they got in trouble.)

Another webcomic for you

As promised, the first EVIL AIN'T EASY strip is now up for you to see. Click on the image for a bigger view. We'll be updating this one on Thursdays from here on out.

This strip has been a blast to work on so far... it pretty much writes itself! The most challenging thing is the colors. It's just something I don't have that much experience with, since all of our comics have always been good ol' black and white. But I'm getting there. Luckily, my wife Laura is here to help me out. This usually consists of her looking at the colors I have initially chosen, exclaiming "Yuck!", and then suggesting some other hues that don't offend the eye.

IN OTHER NEWS... don't forget there's a new ROOK CITY page up! This one's a bit late (there goes my streak of on-time updates). Blame it on the convention and end-of-the-year teacher stuff. Or just blame me.

Evil Ain't Easy

This last Thursday, the Kansas City Star started running a new strip of mine in their Previews section. This is a little different than the full Rook City pages I did for them... these are in a strip format and in color. These are going to run weekly through at least May and June. Pretty exciting stuff!

The strip is called EVIL AIN'T EASY and it features Dr. Nimbus. He's a diabolical scientist bent on world domination... unfortunately the mundane annoyances of life keep slowing him down. Along for the ride will be his trusty henchman, Lothar. Click on the sketch above to see a bigger view of these guys.

We'll be putting this up as yet another webcomic on the site very soon. But if you're in the KC area, be sure to pick up a copy of the Thursday edition to see this in print!

S.P.A.C.E.d Out: part 1!

Whew! We're back from our first convention as exhibitors... S.P.A.C.E. 2006 in Columbus, Ohio. And it was great! Thirteen hours on the road each way, but well worth it! Many adventures were had on the road. Nathan probably knows more about Elton and I than he ever wanted to...

Anyway, we have so much to tell you about this con. In this first part, I'm just going to show some pictures we took and talk about the people and events of the weekend. We all got a TON of incredible books that we want to tell you about, too, but that will have to wait for another post.

Here is us at our table as everyone was finishing setting up behind us (Left to right: Nathan, me, Elton). You can't really see all of our table in this shot, but we had lots of copies of the newly printed Random Ink #1, some of which we actually sold and many more of which we traded to other creators for their books (one of the coolest things about the con). We also had free postcards advertising the Rook City webcomic and Nathan's upcoming book, Alms Rook (which you will hear more about very soon). I had my portfolio there for people to look through, so they could see some stuff not featured in Random Ink yet.

The day started pretty slow, but there was an hour or two there where we had people talking to us about our book pretty constantly. I did sketches for some people who bought it, which was a lot of fun. We passed out a bunch of the postcards... a lot of people seemed pretty interested in it. The pages from the Blind Willie Johnson story in my portfolio caught a lot of people's attention... one guy even recognized him, which was crazy.

We were right next to all the guys from Kansas City. From right to left here you see Rob Schamberger, Shaun Gray, and Michelle Arcand. Not pictured (or easily seen) are Eve Englezos, Joshua E. Moutray, Kyle Strahm, Duane Cunningham, and Matt Hawkins. Duane was the only one I had actually met in person before, so it was great to finally put faces with so many names! To make their table stand out, Rob and Matt swiped a pillow and bedspread from their hotel and made it look like a bed. They're so indie...

This gentleman is Steve Hamaker, and as you can see he was situated directly behind us. One of the coolest people I got to meet at the con... he's the colorist for the Bone books, he's got a story in the next installment of Flight, and his comics are just amazing! It was really great to talk to him about Flight and his stuff. He offered me some advice on coloring, which I desperately need. Very cool guy... check out his site!

Just a shot of the con floor to give you a feel for what it looked like. It was a bit bigger than it appears here. I got to meet two other people who have been on Indie Spinner Rack. One was J.Chris Campbell, whose stuff is just amazingly original and fun. Very fun to talk to. The other was mini-comic legend Matt Feazell, a very nice guy who has obviously been doing this a long time. He's got it down. I also met Andy Runton, the creator of Owly (which I finally was able to purchase). He drew a cool sketch in it for me. I attended a panel discussion on webcomics. Didn't learn to much new info, but it was nice to talk to some other web guys and see what they're doing.

Overall, the atmosphere of this show was so great. Just so much creativity going around... I wish I could have wandered around even more. As it was, I felt bad leaving our table for more than a few short spurts. There was just a really cool vibe at this con. Someone had the brilliant idea of passing around a sketchbook with a cow theme. I think most of the artists there (including Nathan and I) sketched in it... it was crazy how great some of the stuff in there was! Things like that just added to the fun of the experience. I think we succeeded in our goal of getting our stuff out there and making connections. If anything, S.P.A.C.E. just wet our appetites for going to more cons!

Hopefully...

Space

Well we're back from space and everything went great. We met a lot of interesting people and will be posting pictures, links, and comments about it soon. For now I just want to tell everyone how much we enjoyed it.

Spinning with the Indies

Like I mentioned on an earlier post, I won a contest on a podcast about independent comics, INDIE SPINNER RACK. This is pretty much the grooviest show about comics out there... Charlito and Mr. Phil are two very kooky and well-read hosts. Anyway, the contest was a "pick your favorite indie book from 2005" kind-of-thing, and I won with my entry about Kabuki: Alchemy. David Mack has got to be my favorite artist and Kabuki my favorite book coming out right now. So, because I won, I got to be on an episode to talk to the guys about Kabuki... which was dang fun! They also were nice enough to talk about Random Ink. You can download the episode and hear for yourself! (My part of the episode goes from 15:20 to 49:00.)

Showtime!

FINALLY.... Random Ink #1 has been reprinted as a full-size comic with a new color cover! This is pretty dang exciting for us simple folk. We've been making mini-comics since junior high, but this is the first time one of our books has been professionally printed. Cool stuff.

Anyway, this issue contains all of these stories from the mini-comic version:

-"Bullets and Bedpans": The FIRST Rook City tale. What happens when anti-hero vigilantes get old? It ain't pretty...

-"Leaf": The brief adventures of a falling leaf.

-"Dark Was the Night": The sad but true tale of blues legend Blind Willie Johnson.

-"The Last Martian": Episode One. Not everyone is happy about the Mars Rover project...

-"Intervention": In this illustrated prose short story, a desperate man in a ruined future searches for a way to change the past. But will he find it before his own fate catches up to him?

PLUS... this new edition also includes the "Sleuth" Rook City story and new pinup by Dustin Roberts. If you want to order this issue, just click here to go to our online printer, Indy Planet. You can also see more preview pages there.

Well, we finished posting the "Bullets & Bedpans" story last week, and it has been restored to its rightful place in the Rook City archive: first. This week we begin an all-new storyline with "Showtime" starring the Captain and Dark Star. This is definitely our first real superhero tale in this webcomic, but like most things in Rook City, not everything is quite as it appears...

It's been a blast drawing this one so far. I've tried to just cut loose and have fun. It's a nice change of pace after the "Sleuth" story for the Kansas City Star. That story was fun, too, but the constraints of having some sort of ending on each page were challenging. Speaking of the KC Star, though, I have another project in the works with them. More on that later.

Remember, we're always desperate for feedback about our stuff! Please leave comments here, e-mail us, or whatever... Hearing what people think of our work is the best part of all this. Thanks!

S.P.A.C.E. Bound

Elton, Nathan, and I are busy getting ready for the Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo (S.P.A.C.E.) in Columbus, Ohio on May 13. This will be our first convention as actual exhibitors... so I'm sure it will be a learning experience. We've been frantically getting all of our stuff together for this. Not expecting to make any money on this trip... just get our stuff out there and make some connections and hopefully some new readers. The cool thing about S.P.A.C.E. is that it is just for indy comics. So, that's what everyone is there to see. We've heard a lot of good things about this con.

Time for a road trip! Mapquest says it's 11 hours each way from Joplin to Columbus. Maybe Elton and I will finally get that next Vlad Squad story written on the way...

Bullets and Bedpans

The new Rook City story has been running the last couple of weeks. "Bullets and Bedpans" is actually the first Rook City tale. But it's an important part of the overall story, so we're posting it. Once all ten pages have run, I'll put it at the beginning of the archive, so everything is in chronological order. Also, since this is an older story, we're putting up more than one page a week. Four pages are up already!

This is the story that introduced Toby Fox... and the Rebuker. You'll notice it's not quite as polished as the newer stories. I still did zip-a-tone by hand for the grays back then, instead of on Photoshop like now. I think I can draw Toby more consistently the same now, as well.